Google isn’t ruling out licensing the software to makers of portable navigation devices used in cars throughout the world, said Gundotra, vice president of engineering at Google for mobile and developers. The process involving Apple is slightly different from the usual App Store submission process, because Maps is a built-in iPhone application, he said.

One has to wonder how valuable a service like this would behave on AT&T’s network. How will this app react to holes in service? Will there be any caching of the map (perhaps in the initial routing phase)?